Culture First Explained

Culture First was originally established as the culture and sport improvement network for the East in October 2009. Since then we have been delivering a programme of activity working across local government, with regional and national agencies and with civil society partners.

The Culture First team has been taking a strategic lead and contributing towards sector sustainabilty by:

Supporting culture and sport services to collaborate and transform

Sharing learning, intelligence and good practice across the sector

Developing leadership and advocacy

Demonstrating the impact of culture and sport in contributing towards local priorities

Culture First is a member of Social Enterprise UK. This means that Culture First has proved it is genuine against independently-assessed criteria for social enterprise. Any operating surplus is re-invested in continued support for the culture and sports sector through knowledge sharing, leadership development and transformation initiatives. You can read our Articles of Association here.

We now undertake commissioned work through the Directors and Matrix of network members in order to enable continued delivery of our core aims. You can find out more about our offer here.

The Culture First team would like to thank our supporters Improvement East, Arts Council England, Sport England and Museums Libraries & Archives for helping to fund this initiative in the formative years. Also our friends at Suffolk County Council for hosting the project and the Eastern Enterprise Hub in helping us to make the transition to a social enterprise.